Blade cultivators are used in the agricultural industry for "minimum tillage" farming, a type of farming particularly useful where soil drifting is a problem. Minimum tillage farming attempts, as far as possible, to leave an undisturbed stubble cover on the top of the ground to prevent soil drifting and soil erosion.
A blade cultivator acts beneath the ground surface to undercut the stubble residue. In so working, the blade is subject to wear and to extend the life of the blade and reduce wear, a layer of chromium carbide as deposited on the blade material. Present machines used to deposit this chromium carbide layer suffer from disadvantages.
Present machines utilize a "carriage assembly" in which the blade material is supported and conveyed through the metal depositing device. Size limitations dictate that only two pieces of blade material be mounted simultaneously in the carriage. Following the deposition of metal on these two pieces, they are manually removed from the carriage, the carriage is returned to its initial position and two more pieces are then mounted in the carriage to be similarly conveyed through the metal depositing device. The method is inefficient.
A further problem with recent machines is that in order to properly apply the metal layer to the blade, a "preheating" of the blade is necessary on both sides before metal deposition in order to bring the blade temperature to the appropriate level or "sweating" temperature for the metal to be deposited and to keep the blade material straight in the machine. Time is necessary for this preheating to be accomplished and, necessarily, the carriage cannot move the blade material into the metal deposition area until the appropriate temperature is reached. This, similarly, is inefficient.
A further problem associated with present machines involves their basic design. A moving carriage requires a means to drive it, to stop it, to return it and to initiate the drive again. All require separate design elements which can wear unnecessarily.